Microwave Treatments of Cereals: Effects on Thermophysical and Parenchymal-Related Properties

Dielectric heating is one of the most interesting techniques for pest disinfestation. However, most of the literature works give information about the ability of microwave treatments at different power-time conditions to kill insects; less is given about the analysis of matrices structural properties and heat transport. Accordingly, the aim of this work is to investigate the effect of microwave treatments, applied for pest disinfestation, on heat transport behavior and physical/structural properties, such as water uptake capability, mineral losses, texture change, and germination capability, of most consumed cereals in human diet, such as weak wheat, durum wheat, and corn. Two different radiative treatments were performed: one in time-temperature conditions capable of inactivating the weed fauna, and the other at high temperatures of ~150 °C, simulating uncontrolled treatments. Heat transport properties were measured and showed to keep unvaried during both effective and uncontrolled microwave treatments. Instead, grain physical properties were worsened when exposed to high temperatures (reduction of germination ability and texture degradation). The achieved results, on the one hand, provide new structural and heat transport data of cereals after microwave treatments, actually not present in the literature, and on the other, they confirm the importance of correctly performing microwave treatments for an effective disinfestation without affecting matrices physical properties and nutritional features.

Green Synthesis of Nanofertilizers and Their Application as a Foliar for Cucurbita pepo L

The implementation of nanofertilizers in agriculture is the purpose in specific to decrease mineral losses in fertilizing and raises the yield during mineral management as well as supporting agriculture development. Hence, this experiment was conducted in Shebin El-Kom, El-Monifia governorate, Egypt, during two seasons 2017 and 2018 to study the effect of micronutrient oxide nanoparticles of zinc, iron, and manganese, as well as combination between these oxides as a foliar application on the growth, yield, and quality of squash plants. The obtained results showed that the spraying of manganese oxide nanoparticles on the plants led to the best vegetative growth characteristics, also, the characteristics of the fruits, yield, and the content of photosynthetic pigments. On the contrary, the content of organic matter, protein, lipids, and energy gave the highest value in squash fruits that have been sprayed with iron oxide nanoparticles.

Substantiating a technique to process hard rock involving extraction of valuable components and use of wastes to form mesorelief

A technique to process rock mass from hard-rock technogenic media has been developed; it is aimed at recovery of mineral losses, restoration of the environment at the territory of mining enterprises by means of rock mass extraction, its processing and redistribution for the purposes of land recultivation and landscape restoration. Classification of dry ore-containing hard rocks of dumps has been developed; that has made it possible to improve technological scheme of the processing of rock mass from technogenic media, emphasize its variants of use, and specify the required facilities and their productivity. Scientific value of the paper is in determining the effect of changes in the losses in pre-processing dry wastes upon the yield of industrial product and wastes; the effect has demonstrated that the yield of industrial product is in polynomial dependence upon the pre-processing losses while yield of tailings is in the power dependence. Practical implications of the paper are in the fact that the proposed method helps form mesorelief with the properties close to the natural one. The method involves restoration of the initial landscape with the help of opening hard rocks followed, completed by laying water-bearing and potentially fertile layers.

Effects on Mineral Content of Different Methods of Preparing Frozen Root Vegetables

Contents of ash and P, K, Ca, Mg, Na, Fe, Zn, Mn, Cu, Cr, and Ni were determined in raw carrot, root celery, parsnip, and red beet before and after blanching and cooking, and also after 12 months of refrigerated storage. The treatments applied before freezing included washing, peeling, grinding, and blanching or cooking, which caused significant decreases in the content of most analysed elements in carrot, root celery, and parsnip. Red beet was not peeled when it was thermally processed, this avoided mineral losses and no significant changes were found between raw and boiled samples. Carrot, root celery, and parsnip previously cooked and then frozen, had a significant higher content of sodium and manganese, while chromium content did not change. There were no differences found in manganese, zinc, nickel or phosphorus content in carrot and parsnip. Depending on vegetables, differences in other minerals were not significant or their content was higher in cooked than in blanched samples before freezing.